The dream began in velvet red.
Not crimson.
Not theatrical.
Blood-colored velvet.
Heavy and sound-absorbing.
I stood on a childhood stage.
Spotlight trembling above.
Audience veiled in static — no faces, only outlines.
The microphone stand was taller than I remembered.
So tall it reached my throat —
pressed against it like a warning.
---
The piano started on its own.
A lullaby.
But slower.
Darker.
> "Hush now, little voice, the crowd prefers an echo…"
That line had never been in the original.
Or had it?
I opened my mouth to sing —
but no lyrics came.
Just a warm metallic taste.
Blood.
I touched my lips.
Red.
The crowd clapped.
---
I woke up sweating.
But the taste lingered.
Metallic. Sharp.
Not imagined.
Something was bleeding.
---
I stumbled to my journal.
Opened to the page I'd avoided for months:
> "First Song: Age 9"
Only now, there was something new.
Scrawled at the margin, in tiny, tight letters — mine, but desperate:
> "You didn't write it. You remembered it."
I froze.
What did that mean?
---
I pulled out the tape recorder my mother had saved from that first recital.
The cassette was labeled:
"June 9th. Her First Song. So Proud 🖤"
I remembered it clearly — or thought I did.
The white dress.
The trembling hands.
The smile too big for my face.
I hit play.
---
🎙️ [Tape Crackle]
🎙️ "And now, our youngest performer — the prodigy…"
🎙️ [applause]
Then…
A girl's voice.
High. Angelic.
But as I listened, something twisted.
The lyrics weren't mine.
Weren't the ones I remembered writing in crayon in my pink notebook.
---
> "If I say I'm happy, will you let me stop?"
> "If I sing it sweetly, will you hear it wrong?"
---
I stopped the tape.
Played it again.
Same voice.
Same words.
Not me.
Or… not the me I remembered being.
---
I dug through old press clippings.
One article — "Child Star Writes Haunting Ballad at 9" — quoted my mother:
> "She composed it after a quiet week alone in her room. We didn't even know what she was working on. Such raw talent."
But I'd been at camp that week.
I remember because I lost my stuffed dog on the bus ride back.
So who wrote the song?
And who performed it?
---
That's when I found the photo.
Tucked behind the cassette in a faded envelope.
It was a still frame from a video never aired:
Me — on stage.
But beside me, another girl.
Same age.
Same dress.
Same face.
Except her eyes weren't looking at the crowd.
They were looking at me.
Like I was the audience.
---
I turned the photo over.
In blue ink:
> "Only one of us could debut."
And below that:
> "You were better at forgetting. I was better at surviving."
---
I screamed.
The walls shook.
A picture fell.
Behind it — another envelope, yellowed with age.
Inside: a contract.
Unsigned.
Unfinished.
But stamped with a logo:
"Reflection Records – Experimental Identity Division"
What the hell was that?
---
I kept digging.
Through drawers. Old USBs. Journals.
Eventually I found a locked box.
The key was still on the chain around my neck — the one I never took off but never remembered why I wore.
I opened the box.
Inside:
A second cassette.
A patch of cloth from my recital dress.
A note.
> "Listen. Then decide which story you want to keep."
---
I played the second tape.
🎙️ "Voice Log – Internal. Confidential. Subject: Project Songsplit"
> "Initial results indicate identity contamination after repeat emotional exposure. Subject Alpha exhibits full memory adoption of constructed persona. Subject Beta retains traumatic core but suppresses through melody mimicry."
> "We advise permanent integration. Duality too unstable."
---
I fell to the floor.
Hands shaking.
Tears soundless.
Was I Alpha or Beta?
Had they built me?
Rewritten me?
Replaced part of me?
Had I even wanted to sing?
---
The phone rang.
I didn't recognize the number.
I answered.
Silence.
Then — my voice.
> "I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to remind you."
> "Of what?"
> "That the first lie wasn't yours."
> "Then whose was it?"
> "The one who told you to smile when you bled."
Click.
---
I wrote for hours that night.
Pages of memories.
Of the white dress.
Of the song I sang.
Of the night I woke up with lyrics tattooed across my arms — but in mirror writing.
None of it added up.
And yet, all of it felt true.
---
Finally, I opened the piano.
Pressed a single note: D#.
Held it.
And whispered:
> "Did you write this song, or did I?"
Silence.
Then the next key pressed itself.
F.
---
The piano began to play.
On its own.
A melody I half-remembered.
A lullaby.
A warning.
I sat.
Sang along.
And for the first time in my life…
The harmony felt like mine.
Not because I owned it.
But because I was willing to share it.
---
At the end of the song, I turned on the recorder.
Spoke directly into it:
> "If my voice was born from a lie…
then let me use it to tell the truth now."
> "Even if that truth is:
I don't know who I was.
Only who I choose to become next."
---
I looked at the mirror across the room.
This time, she wasn't there.
Not hiding.
Not waiting.
Just… gone.
Or maybe inside me now.